


Big, Showy, Romantic Gestures...

by coffeestainsandcashmere



Series: Short Stories [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco's not actually an arsehole in this, F/M, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi, and just wanted a quiet weekend, angst with a heavy dose of fluff, big grand showy romantic gestures gone wrong, differences in upbringing, he's just not thinking, hermione is Tired(TM), it's all worked out in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25240429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeestainsandcashmere/pseuds/coffeestainsandcashmere
Summary: "After the longest week, with barely a moment to catch her breath, burning the candle at both ends, all Hermione wanted to do on Saturday was sleep, read up on a few more things for an upcoming Ancient Studies test, perhaps lounge in the boys’ room down in the Dungeons, and perhaps convince one of them to give her a massage. Simple, humble plans, every last one of them.But the universe, apparently, had other ideas, given that it had seen fit to make the busiest week of term so far culminate not in an ordinary weekend, but in Valentine’s Day."From a Tumblr prompt about the first serious fight that Theo x Draco x Hermione have, and how they make up after. I left the working title as the final title :)
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Theodore Nott, Hermione Granger/Theodore Nott
Series: Short Stories [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810282
Comments: 9
Kudos: 69





	Big, Showy, Romantic Gestures...

**Author's Note:**

> I had such fun writing this that it got to nearly 4k words and I might make a Part Two of it featuring the events of the following weekend... I feel like this would fit nicely into the timeline/canon of my longer story 'All that's best of bright and dark' that you can find here on AO3 too, but it works as a standalone too.

After the longest week, with barely a moment to catch her breath, burning the candle at both ends, all Hermione wanted to do on Saturday was sleep, read up on a few more things for an upcoming Ancient Studies test, perhaps lounge in the boys’ room down in the Dungeons, and perhaps convince one of them to give her a massage. Simple, humble plans, every last one of them. 

But the universe, apparently, had other ideas, given that it had seen fit to make the busiest week of term so far culminate not in an  _ ordinary  _ weekend, but in Valentine’s Day. 

Wizarding and Muggle alike the world was awash with pink hearts and red roses, and Hermione wanted nothing to do with it. She never had, and she knew that both boys were unfortunately prone to grand displays of affection, and that made her anxious and snappy. She’d spent most of the previous week - in the cumulative half hour that she’d actually spent in their company - trying to hint and suggest heavily that she had no interest in grand surprises and romantic endeavours. The most romantic thing someone could do for her was respect her wishes, after all. 

Quite deliberately, she’d not made any concrete plans to see the boys that Saturday, helped by the fact that Draco had an extensive Quidditch training session scheduled and Theo had some work to catch up, but after she’d woken at her usual time anyway, and had lain there for an hour, praying for sleep that wasn’t going to return, she got up. Her mother had always said that if you can’t rest, do something productive. 

The Great Hall teemed with excitable younger years, one or two unfortunate howlers, and a plethora of Exploding Envelopes filled with glittering confetti hearts from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, and she turned around and left before even bothering to step inside. It wasn’t that she hated the sentiments behind Valentine’s at all, but honestly, it just felt rather cheap and the thought of it all simply… exhausted her further. 

Without pausing or returning to the Tower, she made the split-second decision just to bolt out into the grounds and found herself eventually at Hagrid’s hut. He was outside chopping wood and Fang was busy sneakily lapping tea out of the bucket-sized mug that Hagrid had set on a spare stump. The enormous hound looked up suddenly as she caught him in the act, but then gave a low, baying woof of welcome. 

“‘Allo, ‘Ermione,” Hagrid said with a grunt and a little puzzled frown as he straightened from his work. “Good te see yeh. What brings yeh down ‘ere at this time o’ day?”

She shrugged. “Got any jobs I can help with?” she asked instead and he raised an eyebrow and chuckled. 

“Don’t see yeh swinging this around…” the half-giant laughed, hefting the axe that looked like it weighed five times what she did. 

“Preferably not,” she said. “Though I’m not opposed to using magic to get it done.”

“I think I’ve got a few jobs we can do together,” he said. “Fang? Let’s go see Uncle Firenze, eh?” 

They spent the day in the Forbidden Forest with the centaurs, a rare opportunity that Hermione relished, gathering wild mushrooms that only grew in the very depths of the forest and bringing them back carefully in a covered basket for the potions storeroom, among other rare ingredients. She also spent a long time walking with Firenze, the pale centaur quizzing her about the state of the wider wizarding world now, and she in turn asking him questions about the more rigorous sides of the art of divination. The three of them, four if you counted Fang snuffling about in the undergrowth, ate a packed lunch of cheese sandwiches which Hagrid drew out of his top pocket, only slightly misshapen and squashed, and afterwards Firenze showed them some rare, early-spring berries that tasted like pomegranate but had the texture of blueberries. 

At last, her physical exhaustion matched her mental tiredness, and by the time they returned to Hagrid’s hut an hour from sunset, grubby and a little sweaty, she felt fit to fall over. 

“Thank you, Hagrid,” she said, pushing a strand of her ‘witch of the wilds’ hair out of her face, only for it to spring back again. It was so big at that point that a hippogriff chick could probably have nested atop it in perfect comfort. “I needed the distraction.”

He bowed in quiet understanding. “Any time, ‘Ermione. Yeh know that.”

She blessed him silently for not asking any more, and with a nod and a final pat on Fang’s head, she turned her steps towards the castle with no more thoughts in her head than for a long soak in a bath and an early night. 

Again, the universe apparently had other ideas. 

Pacing the entrance hall like his caged namesake, she found Draco looking breathtakingly smart in a set of charcoal grey dress robes and shiny black Oxfords. When he looked up and spotted her, his face did something complicated, the final expression settling on relief, and he came over to her in two quick strides. 

“Where the hell have you been?” he barked, scowling. “Look at the state of you!”

“Out and about in the forest,” she said tersely, hackles rising at his tone. “I didn’t know I needed to report my whereabouts to you, Draco…”

“You —” he began but he broke off and took a breath. “You don’t. Of course you don’t. But I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Theo too. He’s gone to Gryffindor Tower to ask for you again. You weren’t in the library and no one has seen you all day.”

“Why?” she asked. “It’s not like we made plans…”

Draco went still at that, his cheeks first paling and then flushing. 

“Did we?” she pressed, hand on hip, now quite certain that they had not. “Oh god, Draco, don’t tell me you’ve got something dramatic planned for Valentine’s, and you haven’t told me because you wanted to surprise me?” She pinched the brow of her nose. “Please… I told you how I feel about that kind of thing…”

When he spoke again, his voice was cold, defensive, even haughty. “Actually, yes, I do. I wanted to do something nice for you today, and I’d appreciate it if you went and washed the thestral shit off your skin and the twigs from your hair, and changed into something nice. I know you know how to dress up, Granger.”

The frayed end of her metaphorical tether slithered into sight and vanished utterly, and she gasped, “You’d ‘appreciate it’, Draco? Well, you know what I’d have appreciated? Being asked!”

“I’m asking you now,” he said petulantly. 

“No you’re not!” she shrilled back at him. “You’re demanding. This is the classic, old Draco - ‘Go and change, Granger’, ‘dress up nicely, Granger’.”

Draco balked visibly but ground his jaw. “I’m sorry,” he snarled, sounding more frustrated that contrite. “But we’re going to miss our booking, and I’d really like to make it. Please… will you go and change?”

She nearly said yes. Damn her, but she nearly said yes. 

Even after the week from hell, with tutoring sessions and tests and homework and prefect’s patrols, she nearly said yes.

But this time, Hermione Granger was going to stand up for herself. 

“No, Draco, I won’t. I’m exhausted, and all I wanted from today was to relax, have a bit of time to myself, and spend the evening in the bath and then in bed. If you’d  _ told  _ me instead of just assuming I’d go along with whatever grand gesture you’re pulling out of your arse, then maybe I’d think differently. But you don’t just get to order me around like I’m some pureblood debutante to decorate your arm for the evening, Draco. Goodnight.”

And with that, she stormed up the stairs, leaving an astonished and fuming Draco at the bottom, his face revolving through a series of expressions and colours. 

She passed Theo on his way back down and he almost didn’t spot her as he scuttled down the staircase looking equally and devastatingly handsome as Draco had. “Hermione?” he asked, skidding to an ungainly stop and having to grab the banister to support himself as she charged past him. 

“Ask Draco,” she said over her shoulder. “But whatever it is, I’m not going. You two should go and indulge your penchant for lavish evenings on each other.”

“Fuck. I knew it,” she heard him hiss, but to his credit, he didn’t follow her either. 

Hermione fumed all evening, and even the bath did nothing to calm her down. Despite her agitation, however, she did sleep soundly, the exertions of the day robbing her brain of the ability to over think itself into ever tighter and tighter circles. Sometimes she could see how far Draco had changed in what would be a year this May, but other times he defaulted to his pureblood upbringing; to the son of a nobleman, used to having people do his bidding without question. She tried to be patient, but at times like this, it irked her more than she would have thought possible. 

The fact that this was their first major falling out - sure, they’d had little misunderstandings and had snapped at each other before now - was also a major contributing factor to the free-floating stress and anxiety coursing through her. What if he never learned to ask instead of demand? Was that the kind of person she wanted to spend her life with? And Theo had been Draco’s boyfriend before he’d been hers. Would he always just go along with what Malfoy wanted? Doubts chased each other like  kneazles and bats in her brain when she woke in the early dawn, until she thought she might go mad. 

Malfoy really had been a wonderful boyfriend so far, but he was undeniably prone to bouts of showy, melodramatic romanticism. Her mind conjured images of the diamond necklace he’d gifted her for Yule, and the staggeringly expensive watch he’d gifted Theo, and she struggled to brush them away. He’d come a long way, and he’d changed a lot, but some things took their time, and she doubted whether other things would ever change.

When she stepped out of the Fat Lady’s portrait the next morning, she ground to a halt and almost walked straight back into the tower before the portrait could swing shut. She didn’t, however. She held her ground and stared at Draco who was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, looking like he’d been there all night. The charcoal grey robes were the same, if dishevelled, the shirt open at the collar. Merlin, he really had been camped out there all night. 

He levered himself to his feet and stared at her sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” he blurted before she could open her mouth. “Hermione, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t listening to you at all, and I should have asked, and I never should have just…  _ presumed  _ like that. I’m so sorry, Hermione.”

She stared at him. “So you know why I’m angry.”

“I didn’t ask,” he said immediately. “And I didn’t respect you. I knew that what I was doing wasn’t the right way to treat you, to show you… but I wilfully ignored that and went ahead with it anyway. I was a giant ass and I’m sorry I hurt you.”

His handsome face looked ashen and wan, his eyes pink behind the silver of his irises. He also carried the sleepless smudges of a night spent in a draughty corridor beneath his eyes. 

Looking around, she asked, “Where’s Theo?”

“Hiding,” Draco said bashfully. “And brooding. It’s awful. Sitting here on the floor all night was actually preferable to being around him.”

Fighting a smirk at his humour, she asked, “Did the two of you go last night?” Wherever it was they’d planned to take her. 

Draco’s brows dipped into a deep scowl. “Without you? Of course not.”

At that, she did twitch her lips. “Go and change out of last night’s robes, Draco,” she said gently, well aware that that was one of the things Draco had said to her, sparking the argument off in the first place. “And take a shower while you’re at it.” 

“Hermione —” he began, taking an aborted step towards her, but he swallowed thickly and nodded. “I’ve said what I wanted to say,” he added dejectedly, and turned away to walk down the corridor with his head held in a distinctly un-Malfoy bow. 

Before he’d gone two steps, she reached out and latched her fingers around his wrist. “I’ll see you in the Great Hall in a bit for some breakfast, ok?”

With eyes wide and achingly vulnerable, Draco tried out a little smile on his worried lips. It didn’t stick, but at least it had been there. “Ok. Thank you.”

She rolled her eyes as he walked off, hands in his pockets. “Such drama,” she said as she turned to find the Fat Lady watching their exchange with avid interest. 

The Fat Lady popped another chocolate into her mouth as if it were cinema popcorn, and giggled. “Young love,” she crooned. “I’ll enjoy telling Violet all about this later on! You mark my words. You know,” the portrait added thoughtfully as Hermione started to walk away too, and the witch halted immediately. 

“Know what?” she asked, warily. 

After another chocolate and a quick giggle, the Fat Lady said, “He tried every trick he could think of to get me to let him in. I know very well who he is to you, but I very nearly had to leave my painting in frustration. He kept it up until at least two in the morning.”

“When Draco sets his sights on something, he’s very difficult to dissuade,” Hermione agreed. “Thank you for not letting him in. I wouldn’t have welcomed his presence last night. I was still too angry with him.”

The Fat Lady looked horrified and said, “As if I’d let someone in that wasn’t supposed to be here!”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Hermione said. “But thank you all the same.”

With a soft ‘harrumph’ around another praline, the Fat Lady nodded. 

Theo was already in the hall when she entered, and she spotted him almost immediately. He was stirring his ceramic tankard of coffee listlessly with his spoon and staring into it like it held the secrets of the universe. 

“Drama queens, the both of you,” she muttered fondly to herself under her breath. Ignoring the Gryffindor table, she turned her steps towards the Slytherin one. 

Her presence there was now not such a surprise that most people ignored her approach without comment, effectively giving her the chance to sneak up on the lone Slytherin, sliding into the space on his right before he’d even realised she was there. 

“Morning,” she said in a low voice, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The spoon clattered against the mug and coffee slopped over the sides as his fingers released it unbidden. 

“Hermione,” he breathed. 

His whole face was a question, and she laughed. “Yes, I’ve spoken to Draco, and yes, he’s still got his pretty face and both his bollocks.”

“What about his cock?” Theo joked reflexively, nervously. 

“You’ll have to find out later, won’t you?” she deadpanned without looking at him, reaching out to pour herself a mug of tea from a nearby pot. 

After a pause, in which Theo vanished the spilled coffee that had pooled around the base of his own mug, he asked, “So… how badly did we fuck up yesterday?”

She took a sip of her tea and added a splash more milk before responding. “Not going to lie, I was really annoyed with both of you for just assuming I’d be ok with being whisked off to wherever without a moment’s warning. I hate surprises, and you both know it.”

“Yeah…” Theo admitted. 

“So what were you thinking?” she almost shrilled. “That it’d be different if it came from you? That I’ll magically stop hating surprises just because they’re from you two?”

Theo half-shrugged, half-twitched, and said, “Kind of… Look, Hermione, I’m not trying to excuse us - we didn’t listen to you, and that’s the bottom line - but…” he broke off and ground his jaw for a moment.

“Just spit it out, Theo,” she said, turning and resting her elbow on the table to regard him properly. 

“We were raised in a different world from you, ok? From most witches and wizards actually. Purebloods like us are expected to behave in certain… coded ways with the women we’re… courting.”

“‘Courting’?” she snorted, unable to help herself. 

Adopting a sycophantic, over the top manner, he gestured and said, “Wooing, of whom we are seeking the favour, ingratiating ourselves… making our intentions known…”

“Shut up, you pompous prick,” she laughed and his face cracked into a tentative smile. 

He was clearly relieved to find laughter in her reaction, not anger. “So…” he continued in a more normal tone, returning his hands to the table and running his thumbnail along the grain in the wood, eyes downcast. “So… there are certain behaviours we kind of default to, and… honestly, there are certain behaviours that the women in our circles also expect of us. Big, showy, romantic gestures being one of them. You should consider yourself lucky you didn’t wake up to a room full of messenger owls all hooting imperiously and bearing enormous bunches of the rarest roses on earth or something…”

“I suppose I should,” she said, beginning to see it now from their point of view. 

“A pureblood wizard is expected to show that he can take care of the witch he intends to —” he cut off and swallowed, freckles briefly disappearing behind a rising flush. “—to court. That there’s nothing on earth he couldn't provide for her at the drop of a hat. I think we just… we just wanted to show you that we’re serious, but… we may have underestimated the calibre of the witch we’re dealing with here…”

“Maybe just a little bit,” she said dryly, and then sighed. “Did Draco really spend all night outside Gryffindor Tower?”

“Yup.”

“Big, showy, romantic gestures, huh?” she said, plucking a croissant off a nearby platter and tearing one end off. “I’m half expecting him to come in here with a single white rose in his hand,” she scoffed, looking up to find that Theo eyes were now fixed on a point just behind her. Draco had apparently arrived then. 

She saw his pale hand reaching down to the table out of the corner of her eye and when he picked up a silver spoon, she closed her eyes and laughed softly to herself. A tingle of magic nearby told her what he was doing, and sure enough, when she turned around to look up at him from her seat, Draco stood there with a single, transfigured white rose in his right hand. 

“Unbelievable,” she said, rolling her eyes again. 

Silently, Draco held it out to her and she took it. It smelled like summer evenings and she exhaled. 

“Apology accepted, Draco,” she said, glancing around. “Now sit down. You’re causing a scene.”

He slid onto the bench on her right and stared at the empty plate in front of him for a moment, hands resting elegantly on either side of it. 

She reached out and placed her palm over his, feeling the slight twitch beneath as their skin made contact. Hermione squeezed his long fingers until he looked up at her, his eyes shining and his face wracked with a complex mixture of emotions that she had no hope of deciphering. 

“Theo and I talked,” she said. “And he may have pointed out to me a certain ‘difference in upbringing’ that went some way towards explaining why you went to the lengths you did yesterday.”

“I still —” Draco began but she cut him off. 

“We’ve established already that you could have opened your lugholes a little sooner, but I feel like we’ve also moved on from that. It came from a place of love and good intention, and as such, I’d like to propose a compromise.”

At that, Theo and Draco both gave her their absolute and undivided attention and curiosity. 

Stifling a smirk, she said, “I don’t know what it is you had planned for yesterday, and frankly at this point, I don’t ever want to know. But how about we go into Hogsmeade next weekend and have dinner together. I’ll know it’s coming and what to expect, and you two can argue over who foots the bill if you want to make it a romantic gesture. Or we can split it three ways.”

“Absolutely not,” Draco said instantly and something hot flared inside her at that. “I meant splitting the payment three ways,” he added bashfully, seeing where her mind had gone instead. 

At that, the tension shattered and she tipped her head back and laughed, gripping his hand for support as she leaned almost perilously far back. Theo put his hand between her shoulder blades just in case, and half the Slytherin table began to stare at them. 

Theo leaned in close and said in her ear, “You’re causing a scene, dear Hermione.”

She squeezed Draco’s hand and let out a long, slow sigh as the laughter faded. “What am I going to do with you two?” she said, shaking her head. 

“Be patient…?” Draco all but begged, mumbling into his coffee. Where Theo took his black, Draco piled cream and sugar into his until it was barely recognisable as coffee in the first place. She smirked fondly to herself as she contemplated his ridiculously sweet tooth, and wondered if, with his penchant for apples, he also liked sour sweets. Perhaps she’d get Harry to owl her some Haribo to try out on him. 

“Hermione?” he asked, looking up at her. His skin was so pale it was like marble in the soft light of the Great Hall, and he looked eerily like the statue of a saint at a shrine in that moment, all hope and tentative expectation. 

For her answer, Hermione slid her left hand into Theo’s, and then reached up and took Draco’s chin in her right hand, turning him by his sharp and now-just-perfectly-pointed chin. His eyes were wide, gleaming, silver mirrors, fixed unyieldingly on her own. 

Hermione held him there between thumb and forefinger, and as she pressed a searing kiss against his pale lips, she felt Theo’s grip tighten on her left hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment if you'd like a Part Two, and come find me on Tumblr and leave me a prompt if you like - [coffeestainsandcashmere](https://coffeestainsandcashmere.tumblr.com)


End file.
